The Chosen Obama Narrative
Gosh, I Love The Liberal Media
China's Gold Medals Found To Have High Lead Content
Election Based On Merit, Not On Identity
How Obama Changed Change
A Candidate At Home In Scranton
Obama Patriotism and Worldview Declared Off-Limits
Pushing Russia Into The Cold
Rally 'Round
This Historic Candidacy
Redefining The Problem Won't Make It Go Away
Kvetching and Convening
McCain Vs Obama: Showdown At Saddleback
No Celebration For Horses At This Celebration
The Senator
The Lady Dithered
Farewell To An American Hero
Obama Flubs The 'Presidential' Test
Blame Everyone But Russia!
Findings
Parties Afraid To Face Population Explosion
Let's Get Cracking On America's Infrastructure
Mccains Vs. Biden: Not All 'Foreign Policy Experience' Is Created Equal
The Obama Moment
Kennedy's 'Right' Is Wrong
Rolling With The Punches
Predator And Prey
Bush Bets Pakistan Will Become South Korea, Not Iran
NATO Meows
Obama, Democrats At The Crossroads
Dems Will Never Abort Pro-Choice Mission
Holier Than Thou
On Meal Diversity, Being Green, Dudists, Al's Opera, Etc.
What I Saw At The Discombobulation
The Quadrennial Whine Is Wrong
The Better Hillary Does, The Worse For Obama
'RomneyCare' Should Keep Mitt Off McCain Ticket
Be Not Cool
Report From A Forgotten War (3rd in a Series)
Avoiding A Lieberman Disaster
Does King Plus 45 Equal Obama?
A Promise And A Dream
On Shooting Taggers: Why Conservatives And Liberals Differ
It's Hard Work, Cleaning All Those Houses
Grateful For A Do-Nothing Congress
Governing is Above Obama's Pay Grade
New Orleans Counts Its Blessings
Return Of A Literary Hatchet Man
The Middle Convention And The Under Convention
This Old Soldier Never Learns
Young Feminists Shed Label
The Real "Big Tent" Party
Michelle Takes Center Stage
America the Spoiled -- Opinion
Bidens's Toughest Opponent: Himself
Blind Defense of Koran Abrogates Reality
We've Come A Long Way, Baby
Where Paternalism Makes The Grade
Why Biden And Not Clinton



Linda Chavez
Obama's Catholic Problem
Linda Chavez 8/8/2008
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Barack Obama has a Catholic problem. If he doesn't do better than John Kerry did in 2004 with this quintessential swing voting bloc, he won't be elected president. Obama's campaign understands this — which is why they're considering allowing a pro-life Democrat, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to speak at the Denver convention. Sen. Casey's father, the late Governor of Pennsylvania Robert Casey Sr., was denied a speaking slot at the Democrats' 1992 convention for fear of offending pro-choice Democrats. But simply allowing his son to speak at the convention won't be enough to woo Catholics back.

Catholics are by no means a single-issue voting group. But for observant Catholics, those who attend Mass regularly and follow the Church's teachings, a candidate's position on abortion matters. Even among more broadly identified Catholics — those who call themselves Catholic, regardless of whether they are observant — 59 percent oppose abortion, according to a recent Time magazine poll. And Barack Obama's record on this issue will cause pause for many of them.

Like most Democratic politicians, Barack Obama favors abortion rights for
women, with few exceptions. He has recently said that he might support some limits on very late-term abortions, those that occur in the last trimester of pregnancy. But when it comes to actual legislative limits, he's never found one yet he can vote for.

Take partial-birth abortion, a gruesome procedure in which the fetus is delivered feet-first, its skull punctured and its brain suctioned out, thereby killing the fetus and collapsing the skull for easy delivery of the full body. Although he was not in the U.S. Senate when it voted to ban partial-birth abortions, Obama has nevertheless heavily criticized the legislation and the Supreme Court ruling that upheld its constitutionality. "Some people argue that the federal ban on abortion was just an isolated effort aimed at one medical procedure — that it's not part of a concerted effort to roll back the hard-won rights of American women. That presumption is also wrong," Obama told those attending a 2007 Planned Parenthood meeting. But Americans overwhelmingly oppose partial birth abortion — 70 percent in a 2003 Gallup poll — so Obama's views put him in a distinct minority.

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The Debate on Abortion
By Angel Boligan - Cagle Cartoons, El Universal, Mexico City * Posted 02/07/2008